"Death, Injury and Other Inconveniences" and what makes a good Splatbook

In the immortal words of pedagogue and deific December chanter Andy Williams, "it's the holiday season" - Which means over on the delightful birdman's Discord folks are celebrating with a new tradition called "Covert Critic" where you give another creator some 5 star reviews and talk about works we like from them publicly! One might object that this is neither covert nor critical and to you I say:

Blogging seems to be coming back in vogue this year, is that just me? I assure you I was doing it plenty before it was cool. With the death of Twitter and the proliferation of AI art of every variety (not to mention the slow degradation of good reporting) individual voices are more important now than ever. Smaller projects, little blogs, fresh insights. Even if someone re-invents the wheel, they'll always be bringing something unique to the table. As such, it always fills me with glee to see new blogs crop up and one such blog is Personable Thoughts - Here-in you can find a delicious sampler of concise ideas, insightful reviews and painfully relatable observations that have already gotten me blogging more this year! 

However the inspiring works of Markus "Personable Thoughts" Personable aren't limited to good takes on his blog. Far from it, his itch page is full of delightful little candies of content just begging to be unwrapped ~ But if I could recommend just one it'd be Death, Injury, and other Inconveniences (henceforth Death And), a "set of alternative mechanics for Death and Massive Damage for Songbirds 3e." In essence, a splatbook on death.

OK what is a Splatbook? 

Splatbooks, for the uninitiated are little injectable nuggets of "content" (I shudder to think what this word evokes in peoples' minds, but that's what they are) for a specific game system. To me the difference between a splat and anything else you can procure for a system is that a splat is usually focused on doing one small thing that can be slotted into an existed setting or campaign. Usually this is new player options, extra equipment, a new mechanic, maybe a location but likely one without a given "quest" to go on within it. I could write for hours about my love of splats, but let's keep this focused on Markus' work for today.

What makes a good Splatbook?

To me (besides the stuff that makes good module writing in general) there's three key elements to making a good 3rd party splatbook:

• Visual Consistency: How well does the layout and info-design gel with the original work and its sister splats? Every system creates its own visual language that both players and GMs will grow a degree of literacy in. Splats that work in this visual language thus become easier to use, while ones laid out in a plaintext file can feel grating.
• Tone Matching: Games are art (gasp) and art usually has something to say and something it's trying to do. It's important in my mind for a splat to have a solid reading of this intention[*1] and try to match that in its thematic tone. A Cyberpunk 2020 splat about the values and moral good of Reaganomics with systems for trickle-down to alleviate poverty would uhhhh probably not feel thematically on-tone. 
• Injectability: This is the good stuff. A splat doesn't have to be an adventure or a setting or even a fully fleshed out system. Splats are at their best when they're only a mechanic or two, a line of weapons or fashion options, an NPC or a single tavern. They have a certain injectability, being able to slot in pretty much wherever a GM needs them. A good splat sits on the GM's spice wrack, waiting to be tapped to punch up a session.

What makes this a good Splatbook?

• Visual Consistency: Good lordy the layout on this thing. Songbirds is potentially Snow's strongest layout work, and Death And mimics it perfectly. The art is sparse but tasteful. The high-contrast favors readability while preserving impeccable aesthetics. The Black/Red effortlessly evokes the splat's themes and serves as a nice contrast to its sister splat Fragments. Just oooo chef's kiss. So good.
• Tone Matching: Songbirds is deeply melancholic, a little weird and a bit sexy. We get that in spades in Death And. I don't think I've ever read a 3rd party splat that understands its source material quite this well. Death And's whole deal is making losing a character to death less likely than having them horrifically and beautifully transformed by the experience, which aside from being mechanically interesting and well executed is absolutely on brand for Songbirds. Growing out new bestial limbs, swapping to another character's body, literally dripping water everywhere you go. It's melancholic, weird and definitely sexy. It's like a mall-goth equivalent of Realm of Chaos' mutation tables ~
• Injectability: I shouldn't have to explain how easy it is to inject death mechanics. What I like about Death And though is that many of its consequences can drastically alter both the shape of characters and the game. As a GM this is the kind spice I love to have peppered into my games, keeping me on my toes and reminding me not to prep too much.

Even if you don't use Death And wholesale, its ideas are a treat to read and I've found got my brain whirling on fates more interesting than death as well as novel ways to transform PCs.

Room for improvement?

So I want to talk a little bit about Markus' other splatbook for Songbirds Fragments next. True to its name it's a loose collection of scattered ideas just begging to be injected into a setting - Locations, people, puzzles you name it. Fragments has all the makings of an ideal splat, this one for fucked up little guys and interesting places. The layout is spectacular, the tone matches Songbird's quite well (down to a faint echoing of early 2000s video game nostalgia) and the ideas weave together without being so specific as to not be injectable. I could go on about the merits of this splat, but this is Covert Critic after all, so let's add a dash of constructive critique ~ 

Often NPCs presented stick out as not only memorable but mechanically interesting as is the case with my personal favorite Dirk the Bodysmith:

Memorable, evocative and mechanically juicy to boot! (I really like the mechanic for the "adjustment period" and think it could be easily repurposed for any cyberpunk game). And yet there's something in this NPC that feels missing, a certain level of "why." We get this gloriously detailed image of a character who prides himself on his esoteric work, really loves the job, but never quite what it means to him. This is a classic example of where maybe one extra sentence would go a long way, something to really hone in on what Dirk desires. It's not absolutely necessary but I feel like it could elevate an NPC like this.

Does he want nothing but fresh bodies on which to experiment, thus working for free? Does he take some equally esoteric payment like fingers, each needing to be from a unique individual? (Dirk strikes me as a hands guy for some reason) Does Dirk see his work as an art or a science? What drives him to be like this?

As a GM given an ample description of this man's lair, it's not hard to imagine an MO or several (which to be clear is a mark of good writing). But if I was going to give one piece of constructive critique, it's that I'd love to know just a bit more about this man's wants and what drives him in the same way Markus likely does.

There's a spectacular post by To Distant Lands called "Zelda-Style NPC Personalities" that suggests "For my money, the most important thing is that NPCs be extremely on their bullshit. This means:

> They have something they are very interested in.

> They have something that is of interest or value to you.

> They are not interested in you or your goals."

To me, characters in Fragments like Dirk could use maybe just a sentence more fleshing out the first bit there, those wants. There's an incredibly juicy line that explains "He will happily work on those needing modifications, but will be reluctant to do anything considered “normal”." And hot damn if that doesn't condense a paragraph of this guy's psyche down to a single sentence. I would've loved just one little sentence more like this about what makes this guy tick and drives him forward.

And hey if that's my only nitpick with this work, you know it's absolutely cooking.

Markus' work is delightful and to me represents a bar of excellence for what a Splatbook should be. If you like what you've read, and especially if you like Songbirds, definitely check out Markus' itch.io page and download some light reading as a little holiday treat to yourself!

[*1 : I just want to clarify that a splat doesn't need to get the author's intent correctly. They just need to have a solid grasp of an intent that can be read from the original work and run with it.]